Don’t you just love those collaboration packs that include a chart from Little House Needleworks and 5 full skeins of thread from Crescent Colours to stitch the design? I know I do. And now, you have no excuse not to!

From now through May 31st, every one of these packs (except the Spring Sampler silk pack) is on sale at One Star’s Light for just $10 each, including the latest additions:

Since my holiday weekend went to crap, I woke up yesterday morning feeling much better and with a beautiful, sunny, warm day breaking outside, so I decided to take a vacation day. I’m not going to let my dumb old body cheat me out of a long weekend. 😛 Heh-heh.

So, I worked on a super special (kind-of) secret project in the morning, then I went to the post office to send out some orders for OSL, I stopped at McDonald’s and picked up a salad and a strawberry shake for lunch and headed over to visit with my friend Mary! I haven’t seen her since she stopped working months ago. Between my sinus infections and other cruddy stuff running through my body and her not feeling up to company for a while, the timing just wasn’t right until now. She wrote to me last last week and told me that she was anticipating having a good week this week, so I called her up yesterday and popped over for what turned out to be a few hours. 😆

I finally had the opportunity to deliver her SOLAK quilt (please don’t kill me, fellow SOLAK members) and she cried over it. She was just so overwhelmed that people who have never met her before would do something so special for her. 🙂 She cuddled up with it on the sofa while we sat and talked.

It felt really good to reconnect with her. She was a bit apprehensive because people have been treating her differently since her diagnosis last fall. She said that I am the first person to treat her like I always have and make her feel normal. I told her that she’s the same Mary to me! 😀

All in all, it was a really good day. I did get home until after 7:00 PM and I was exhausted by the time I fell into bed, but I felt so energized by seeing her. I had thrown on a pair of hip hugger jeans and a cute little pink button-down top in the morning and I just felt young and lively. I felt like a teenager again! Seriously, I haven’t enjoyed driving and being out by myself like that in a very long time.

I hope that the visit did her as much good as it did me. And now that we’ve re-established our relationship, we’re going to get together more often. She started to pick up scrapbooking again and could use some pointers now and again, while I haven’t touched my scrapbooks in months, so I’ll start going over to scrapbook with her. She’s starting a new chemo treatment next week, so once she settles into a routine with the meds and can predict how she’ll be feeling, we’ll work out some sort of schedule.

All in all, it was a very good day. I told her that she serves as a reminder to me that life is too short to fritter away at work and it’s definitely WAY too short to be unhappy. She also strengthened my resolve to go through with the coursework at The Art Institute Online, regardless of what happens with the scholarship and/or partial reimbursement through work.

Being a web designer truly is a marriage of my artistic side and my logical side. It is a perfect blend of creativity in coming up with the visual design and programming to make it work effectively and efficiently on the back end. I think that’s really where I want to be right now.

*sigh* I’m sorry that it’s over. I was in pain all 3 days. What a waste. But I’m not going to whine about it. So, forget I said anything. 🙂

I was able to finishing my stitching on Michelle‘s round robin fabric. Which means, your baby is coming home to you again soon, Michelle! At Carol’s suggestion, I stitched the WhimZi Rose freebie that’s available on Just Nan’s site.

And that means that I have officially met my first 10 Project Challenge! WOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOO!! It’s about time, since I ordered some items for myself via OSL during the last online Needlework Show in April. It’s about time that I can actually buy them. LOL. Actually, I have quite a collection of things that I’ve been wanting to order, so this will be quite a splurge.

And speaking of stash splurges, Friday was such a lovely day that Terry and I found ourselves quite unable to return to work after going out for a late lunch. So, instead, we took a drive and looked into pricing for some home improvement projects and then drove out to Fireside Stitchery. They aren’t as far away as I had thought they were and I didn’t know that until I talked to the ladies at The Strawberry Sampler last weekend. they said that Fireside Stitchery was fiber heaven and they were NOT KIDDING! Oh my goodness! It was wonderful. And somewhat guilt-free, since I didn’t buy any charts. Heh-heh. 😉

I mostly stocked up on sets of overdyed pearl cottons in #8 and #12 by Leah and in #5 and #8 by Needle Necessities. I also bought a beautiful wooden laying tool and needlecase that are made by a local man out of gorgeous exotic colored woods. I also bought some Gloriana silks that appealed to me. All in all, it was a lovely haul:

I’m sure I spent more than I should have, but I am really starting to get this attitude of “Life is short, just enjoy it!” 😀

I felt kinda crummy on Tuesday and was having trouble focusing while working from home, so I ripped open a Mill Hill kit for a beaded Petite Purse Pin and ripped through it in a couple of hours. The kit utilized odd count peyote stitch for the beadweaving, something I had never done before. Establishing the first couple of rows as a base is a little bit tricky, especially trying to keep even tension and everything, but after that, it’s completely smooth sailing. I had so much fun that I can’t wait to do a larger project! The photo is a little wonky because of how things were laying on the scanner, but you get the point.

Now that I have that under my belt I need to look at some of the Jill Oxton magazines that I have in stock at One Star’s Light to see what peyote projects I can get myself into and buy the appropriate issues and beads. I really think that I want to tackle a much larger amulet bag for my next project. Jill usually has one per issue, so with 3 different issues in OSL stock, I should hopefully be able to find something interesting. Fortunately, I came across a website the other day, in shopping for some Swarovski pearls for a special project for a special friend, that has great prices on Delica beads. Woot! I sense a bead stash splurge in my future… 😉

I forgot to mention the minor stash binge I had a couple of weeks ago at Hancock Fabrics. Like many of their stores, our local Hancock Fabrics (which just opened a year or so ago) is closing and so had everything on clearance. I was a bit late to the party, so to speak, so the store was already pretty stripped down, but I did manage to pick up a few things. These included a bunch of pretty buttons to use for biscornu and pillow decorations, one of every DMC rayon floss they had left (which added up to a couple of dozen), two each of ecru DMC pearl cottons in #8 and #12 (which I can always use for hardanger work) and a couple of fat quarters of miscellaneous fabrics for finishing. I also threw in a couple of other things like a silicone pad for my iron to rest on while it’s cooling and some materials for creating fabric buttons.

No pics, sorry. I put this stuff away a while ago. Not sure what I’ll do with the rayon floss, but everything was at least 50% off (the cashier didn’t give me the correct percentages on everything, but it wasn’t enough money to argue about), so I went crazy.

Also that day, Terry needed to stop at ACMoore (not for me, for once!) for some balsa wood to mock up a model of the gazebo that we want to build in our back woods and he kindly indulged me in a quilling kit. Woohoo! I had to play with it right away, but I haven’t glued anything down onto a card or any other real format yet, so nothing to show there, either. But hey, I finally indulged in the kit – and it didn’t cost me a thing! 😆

Finally, I stopped at Strawberry Sampler (my local LNS) for a couple of materials this past weekend and ended up buying 5 pieces of fabric, a couple of skeins of DMC and a chart. The chart would have been a breach of my 10 Project Challenge (and I’m only one project away from allowing myself a little splurge), except that when I arrived home I figured out that I had already bought the chart last year at CATS in Hershey. DOH!

So, I have a brand new copy of Britty Puppies for sale or trade. It cost me $8 and has barely even been handled (it’s still in the LNS bag), so I’m looking for the price I paid, if possible. I will accept PayPal or suitable trade. Please! Leave a comment or email me (jenna at magees dot net) if you are interested. It’s really cute! So much so that I was apparently really drawn to it! 😉

I’ve been sitting on this post for several days because I didn’t want anything else to overshadow this post. 🙂

Dawn sent me the most lovely PIF package last week. She stitched up a wonderful Britty puppy design for me and finished it as a hanging ornament that I can put on the dishwasher (or around Phoebe’s neck? ;)). She kindly allowed me to borrow her pictures since mine didn’t turn out as well. It’s two-sided and so sweet!

Isn’t it just the cutest thing you’ve ever seen? I think that my favorite is the dirty doggy. He looks so mischievous; I just want to squeeze him! 🙂 Dawn did such a lovely job of stitching and finishing this gift and I’m so grateful to be the recipient. Make sure you stop by her blog and let her know what a fabulous piece she made!

Of course, she also included goodies, that bad girl. A lovely violet Vikki Clayton silk (YUM!) and a cute hardanger pumpkin that I will try to remember to stitch up in October.

I managed to finish two pieces this weekend. My current travel project, which was a Christmas ornament (yes, finally, I am starting to work on these), and another of Outi’s fabulous designs.

I kinda lost my Saturday. We went to Terry’s dad’s Friday evening, stayed overnight and then they went wedding suit shopping on Saturday. I elected to stay behind so that they could have some bonding time. I thought that I would be able to get some stitching done, but the light wasn’t cooperating with me at all, so I really didn’t accomplish much other than staring at the TV for hours. 😆 So, I was itching to leave by the time they came back. Partially because I was bored and partially because I had a headache coming on (most likely from trying to stitching in poor light). So, we traveled back home and Terry helped me nurse my aching head.

Sunday I wasn’t feeling myself. I just sat on the sofa and stitched most of the day. I was feeling a bit depressed, which surprised me and then I burst into uncontrollable tears for a little while. After that, I laid down for a nap and felt better when I woke up, but I feel guilty for not going outside and working on the garden, etc.

For those of you who did not know, I have been considering continuing my education by pursuing either the digital design diploma or one of the graphic design degrees from The Art Institute Online. However, the cost of a college education nowadays is pretty steep and having paid off all of the student loans for my previous college studies, I am loathe to take on an additional set of loans to pay for this expense.

The answer appears to have fallen in my lap in the form of a competition for a $10,000 scholarship being run by The Art Institute Online. The theme of the competition is Live Your Creative Passion. In order to enter, I had to come up with a graphic and write a short essay best representing this theme.

The first round of the competition is public voting via their website. The top 10% or 100 entries from this round will proceed to the second (and final) round where a panel of judges will comb through the entries and choose two winners.

One vote per email address is allowed, so if you have multiple email addresses, I would greatly appreciate as many votes as you can muster. If there is anyone that I may have missed on this list or who might be willing to help out by casting a vote for me, please forward on this information.

This is just getting ridiculous now. I got home last night and immediately did a small tweak to my scholarship entry and submitted it again. It’s now after 2:30 PM and they still have not sent me a link or posted my entry on their site. BAH!

To say that my temper is flaring right now, my anxiety is through the roof and I’m wound up like a top pretty much covers how I’m feeling. I’ve had a rather short fuse this week anyway and this just seals it for me.

I’ve written to the person that my admissions rep. put me in contact with yesterday, just to see what’s going on. I haven’t heard back, but I only sent the email a little while ago. My patience is just non-existent today.

I woke up terribly late (we didn’t get in to work until after 1 PM), which is unheard of for both of us, my joints are suddenly so achy that I can barely move and walking up the flight of stairs to the mezzanine where I work was a big ordeal. I should have taken the elevator, except rumor has it that people have gotten stuck in it before. 😆

I think I need to take some deep breaths and I really wish that I had one of my take-one-as-needed-if-you-are-really-freaking-out extra anti-anxiety pills with me. I haven’t had to take one of those in a couple of months, so it tells you what kind of state I’m in.

But, I’m going to pursue this scholarship opportunity to the ends of the earth, darn it! I’m not a quitter. I even went so far as to email all of the entry information to the contact person to make sure he (or someone) can post it manually, if needed. I refuse to let this slip through my fingers because I didn’t pursue it hard enough.

Today is my day to be ill-tempered, I think. I’ve been in a meeting all morning and when we let out at noon, with lunch vouchers in hand, there wasn’t enough food left in the cafeteria for all of us. Grrr… from my brain and my stomach.

I went out to The Art Institute Online’s page today to check on the scholarship competition because I still have not heard anything. I find that they have posted hundreds of entries. I crawl through every single one of them – TWICE – to find that mine is not amongst them, despite the confirmation email that I received from their system on Friday night.

I call the toll-free number on their website to get some help. I wait on hold for 5 minutes, then get transferred to their generic voice mail. I call the admissions person that’s been hounding me. No answer. Finally called him back again, left a message and sent an email, as well. Thankfully, he was prompt in helping to get me in touch with the proper person. I get an email from another AIO employee, stating that they experienced a “technical glitch” on Friday and some entries were not received. So, I have to resubmit my entry. Not a major problem, except that my essay is on my laptop here at work and the graphic is at home, so I cannot re-enter until I get home tonight. To say I am a bit agitated is an understatement. I just really want to rush home and post my entry ASAP!

I will lose a couple of hours of public voting edge on my competitors who are already posted on the website. Hopefully, you will be able to help me gain some ground, when my entry goes up. There is some talented competition in the mix and a lot of entries to wade through, so I don’t think that I can hope for much in the way of random entries via browsing. So, as soon as it is posted, I will let everyone that I know, know. And hopefully those people will let others know, and so on and so forth. I’ll need all of the votes that I can get if I want to get my entry in front of the judges. 😀